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Sunday 16 July 2017

Sunday Rest: coinsure.

Coinsure, I thought: coinsure? 

Is that some clever way of telling if coins are fake?

Perhaps a coinsure is a chute that confiscates coins of the wrong weight...or even an app for telling if the Queen looks a smidgen too grumpy, or if the unicorn on the pound coin has the wrong number of horns.

Or perhaps it's a way of stopping coins from being eaten by parking meters; or a belt-mounted device for storing coins so we are never without the means of buying a desperately needed bottle of water (because, as the whole world keeps telling us, feeling a bit thirsty is practically, like, lethal. Yeah, right).

Coinsure...you know, that's a really interesting idea. I'd better look it up.

Hang on...

...coinsure. Here it is.

Coinsure: to insure jointly with another.

Oh. Co-insure. I get it.

Well, that was a massive disappointment, wasn't it.

Word Not To Use Without A Hyphen Today: coinsure. The co- bit is Latin, and is short for com- meaning, in this case, together. Insure probably comes from the Middle English assuren, to assure, and before that from the Latin sēcūrus, to secure.

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